Month: June 2015

There’s a hilarious clip of a Naija dude called Patrick Obahiagbon, that’s during the rounds. It’s the one below…

I quoted the first line on Twitter and aside from tonnes of laughter I also got quite a few queries about WTH dude was actually saying. So here it is. The transcript and a translation. Props to Omoyele Sowore of Sahara Reporter for this.
“Let me say as quickly as possible, the political “crinkum crankum”, if you like, the political “higi haga” that has enveloped the politics of Rivers State for a period of time now has all the trappings of an odoriferous saga cum ‘’gargantua gaga,” and I am bewildered that this situation is of no serious concern to the Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria…

It is very crystal clear like the biblical ‘teke teke menoyafasin.’ It is audible to the deaf and visible to the blind…If you look at the totality of the crisis in Rivers State just now, it leaves me with two conclusions that 2015 is inherently laden with a political and democratic ‘Thalidomide.’ Two, some social scientists like myself have gone to town for donkey’s years, saying that what we have is not democracy but civilian rule. But with recent events, I say no. Nigeria is neither witnessing civilian rule nor democracy but what we have at best is a form of government I call ‘kakitomoboplutocracy’ and that is bad for us as a nation…As far as I am concerned, I can see the ship of the Nigerian state hovering around the political Bermuda Triangle, and if we do not take urgent and responsible steps… My critical history and historiography of the study shows that the war of attrition in Rivers State did not commence with the Obio/Okpor political tendency. It commenced, strictly speaking, from the suspicion that Governor Rotimi Amaechi nurses an ambition for the Vice- Presidency of this country.’’ ~ Patrick Obahiagbon.

Here’s what the phrases in quotation marks above actually mean. Or not!

1. Crinkum crankum: Something full of twists and turns; A thing fancifully or excessively intricate and elaborate.

4. Gargantua gaga: Huge, widespread madness; Celebration of insanity? Was Obahiagbon referring to the 16th Century novels written by the French author, François Rabelais, based on The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, the story of two giants, a father, Gargantua, and his son Pantagruel, and their adventures, written in an amusing, extravagant, satirical vein?

5. Teke teke: Was he making reference here to the 2009 Japanese horror film, titled “Teketeke” directed by Kôji Shiraishi and based on urban legend?

6. Menoyafasin: !!!#%@?Help needed!!!

7. Thalidomide: An anti-nausea and sedative drug that was introduced in the late 1950’s to be used as a sleeping pill, and was quickly discovered to help pregnant women with the effects of morning sickness. It was sold from 1957 until 1962, when it was withdrawn after being found to be a teratogen, which caused many different forms of birth defects, including still- born babies.

8. Kakitomoboplutocracy: A Kakistocracy is defined as a government by the worst. A Mobocracy is a government by mobs or crowds, while a Plutocracy is either – 1. The rule or power of wealth or of the wealthy. 2. A government or state in which the wealthy class rules, or 3. A class or group ruling, or exercising power or influence, by virtue of its wealth. A ‘Kakitomoboplutocracy’ would therefore imply a merger of all three forms of government.

9. Historiography: The writing of history, especially based on the critical examination of sources, the selection of particular details from the authentic materials of those sources, and the synthesis of those details into a narrative that stands the test of critical examination; The term also refers to the theory and history of historical writing.